Isn’t this the most strange — yet wonderful — and I bet, very rare — drainboard sink that we have ever seen? It’s the Midway sink from American Standard, and it appears to have been introduced in 1954. Oh glorious day to see one in its natural habitat in the wild. Does anyone out there have one? Has anyone out there seen one? Bueller? Bueller? Read on for 6 more wonderful mid century oddities –>
The photo appears pixelated and gray here, that’s because it was quite small, and I scanned it at high resolution. Here is more information from the advertisement:
Midway Sink: This new, island-type sink-and-cabinet combination saves steps and time. The 44″ x 37.5″ cst iron sink has two deep bowls and spacious drainboard. Exclusive new fitting permits one-hand operation. Steel cabinet opens both front and back… has electrical outlets on both sides.
Here is the American-Standard corporate information also featured in the ad page. Interesting to note that by 1954, American-Standard also owned Church (toilet) Seat and (plastic wall) Tile.
Now here’s what sounds to be a great idea to fill in space between interior wall studs in a closet: A metal recessed shoe rack.
Here is the ad from Leigh Building Products that includes the recessed shoe storage. To get to my count of 7 wonderful oddities — aka “woddities” — I’m also calling out the dust chute, the package receiver and the garbage container, which, I believe, was meant to hand in the inside of your kitchen cabinet door underneath the sink.
This Tu-Vue medicine cabinet has a door that rolls upward to open. I don’t quite understand the marketing copy. Is one of the mirrors a magnifying mirror?
Lastly, an interior heater that seems to sit recessed between wall studs — but it also telescopes to the exact wall thickness. I also find it interesting that this is “engineered for all gases.” I am accustomed to seeing heaters like this that are electric — but ones that run on natural gas or propane? I don’t get that. Bueller? Bueller?
Can you believe that I found all of these woddities in one magazine, one issue – July 1954? The postwar period, and especially the 1950s, I think, was booming with technological innovation. I love to see these wonderful oddities that clearly, did not find success in a mass market but which showcase the inventiveness in America then. And you know what — I think we are still a nation of incredible inventiveness today. Yes, I do! The headlines are all doom, gloom, controversy and confrontation, but we Americans are a hard-working and optimistic people. We make things happen and get things done with spirit.
Joe replaces a vintage porcelain drainboard kitchen sink with a new Elkay stainless steel drainboard sink 
Historic photos of Valerie’s 1954 Milwaukee home — and her pink bathroom 
Vintage style drainboard sink – Clarion by Strom Plumbing 
Become a fan
Love those “woddities”!!! The recessed shoe rack is really cool. For some reason it strikes me as something “upscale” marketed more for men? (I can see the butler Mr. French going in and putting away a pair of Uncle Bill’s shoes)…. I am puzzled, though… I see a clothes chute door in the advertisement. While I never had one in my childhood home, My aunt and uncle have a clothes chute in theirs and it has a door on it with a catch that you had to pull open. I just assumed all clothes chutes came with doors. Was it more common for most clothes chutes not to have them? Just wondered.
It looks like this laundry chute door pushes in, so you could just toss stuff in rather than unlatching and pulling a door open.
I’m more intrigued by the “Dust Chute” in the row below it. You just sweep stuff behind the wall? Into the basement?
I believe you do just sweep the dust into the basement, but I think you attach something under the opening to catch the debris so you only have to dump it once in awhile instead of running to the waste can several times during sweeping (saves countless steps, says the copy).
I have something like that with my fireplace – when the embers are cold I can sweep them into one of two shoots – that I can then clean out later. They lead to the basement. The fireplace chimney sweep that I hired last year said they were top of the line and in great condition for 46 yrs old.
I have that laundry chute in my house. Negligible use in that it only opens until it hits the wall on the other side–maybe 3.5 inches.
Why would a company name a recessed wall heater BRILLIANT FIRE?
I used to live next door to a house that had one of these, fired with gas. It vented from behind with an aluminium “cone” on the exterior wall. They took in out while renovating – I do not think it was up to code.
We have something similar in our addition built in 1959; though it’s not recessed, it does have outdoor cone intake/exhaust thing. It’s gas, too, but we’ve only been here since May so it hasn’t been inspected or used.
I had two of these in a 1950s apt in Dallas. There were only two bad things about it: the heater downstairs pushed all the heat upstairs, making it hot at night — you had to turn the heat way down; and when you turned the heat on for the first time, you had to make sure the pilot was lit so you didn’t kill yourself. I never worried about fire, though, and the one upstairs actually heated two rooms that were adjacent — it had openings on both sides of the heater.
In the bathroom, the metal medicine cabinet was the same way. When my medicine cabinet was open and my neighbor’s was too, we could hold a conversation — the backs of the cabinets backed into one another.
I loved that apt. There were four colors of bathrooms in the complex (green, pink, turquoise, yellow), a metal kitchen with an ironing board pullout and an attic fan (mine didn’t work). The only reason I moved was because they (of course) decided to demolish it and put in something new, it was very sad.
The walls heater in our 1955 home was gas-fired. Anytime the floor vibrated, the lower panel would fall open and you could view the little pilot light in action. Not the safest way to heat a house! Also, those wall heaters did a great job…if you were standing in front of them! The rest of the house would be freezing.
These are great! I especially love the copy on the medicine cabinet ad, “Locking poison shelf (especially interesting to mothers).” I know times were different then, but I’m sure there were some fathers out there concerned about their children being poisoned! It’s fun to see how marketing has changed over the years…thanks for sharing these.
Interesting how these innovations were out of the midwest, specifically Michigan (yea!), Ohio and PA. I think the shoe rack would still be useful!
LOL! “Wife-appeal”.
Pam, you are too funny! “Bueller? Bueller?” Let us know if you get an answer on that one, k? and thanks!
These ‘woddities’ are just charming! The sink island is actually quite interesting – you could orient your kitchen layout in an entirely different way with it.
I was surprised to see those shoe racks in the catalog, because I’ve looked at them for years in my grandmother’s house and didn’t realize they were that unique. I wonder how many homes had them installed?
Pam
The wall heater, I had 2 differnet ones like that in apartments in San Francisco that ran on natural gas. The ones I had, in the 2 seperate apartments , had a fan in the bottom of them that kicked on when the heater turned on, by thermostat. The fan moved at a slow speed. It took the cold air from the floor, blew it over the heated fins and came out the top part. Both apartments I had lived in were built in 1950′s, I know one was built in 1956 the other I don’t know. They are really great heaters if your in an area of the country where it doesn’t get real cold.
Growing up in San Diego, we had a natural gas wall heater in our apartment that was built in the 60s.
My step-dad owns a 1956 home in San Diego and he also as a natural gas wall heater as well as a natural gas floor heater that shares a wall between the living room and dining room.
I remember the pilot light at the bottom of our wall heater that was behind a little door that you could open. The heater would get a bit warm to the touch, but not enough to burn.
Here’s a feature I haven’t seen in years: my grandmother’s stove top had a built-in deep pot instead of a fourth burner.
Every week when we arrived at her house for Sunday dinner, she had delicious gravy simmering in it. I often wish I had a similar pot built into my stove top.
Yes, Tina, I think these were fairly common back in the day. Chambers stoves have them… and I have seen them on others. The electric burner was way down in the bottom on electric stoves.
“Deep Well Cookers” they were called.
I would use one, but I think it cut down on the versatility of the stovetop.
We had an old Maytag like that. It was called a “Dutch oven”. You are right, Gavin, sometimes I did miss having that fourth burner. When we were using it it was just me and my husband, so most of the time it wasn’t an issue to only three burners.
It was a beautiful old stove, though!
My grandmother had an electric stove that had a “Deep Well Cooker”. It was adjustable – you could use it as a regular burner or drop it down for deep well cooking. Can’t remember the make – it was a long time ago!
PhilQ,
My great-aunt had one, too. Left rear burner….hers was a Monarch, circa 1955.
The stove my parents had when I was a kid was a Hotpoint electric (by GE) with the push button controls, the deep well burner and a rotisserie in the oven. The times have sure changed; features like that today would be considered luxe.
I would love a recessed shoe rack, or at least I love the idea of a recessed shoe rack.
I had two of those recessed shoe racks in my house in Burbank, Ca! The house was built in 1940 and overall was a fairly basic house.
So….when did the round laundry chute door come out? Is it ’54 also?
I don’t know, Trouble, but I have one in my 1962 house. I love it, and people are always commenting on it.
The house I grew up in just had a hole in the bottom of the bathroom vanity, and my 1951 Mequon, Wisconsin ranch house had a square laundry chute in the kitchen. NOT convenient for a family with two imaginative kids, a lot of Legos, Super Soakers and a cat.
We blocked it up after big brother convinced little sister to slide down to a pile of blankets on the cement basement floor. Fortunately Mommy came into the kitchen in time to stop the experiment.
LOL That’s awesome!
Well, my ’54 ranch has the round chute, and the ’63 ranch I grew up in did too. I was going to replace the door with a wooden square door to be period correct, but if this flyer is from ’54 and is advertising the round metal, I’m “in like Flynn”!
I remember my brother climbing down the clothes chute, but I believe the door was square and opened with a spring to hold it closed. He also climbed through the milk chute. Some kids are so creative. : )
I was at an estate sale not too long ago in a late 60′s house and they had a package receiver though it was mostly used for milk delivery the daughter said.
Home milk delivery hasn’t been available for decades but the milk box is still attached to the wall outside the back door. I couldn’t believe it had never been removed. Great place to stick gardening tools.
That Leigh Building Products ad has my mailbox on it!
Saw that very shoe rack at an estate sale three days ago! Such a logical invention!
Our 40-foot-long 1958 trailer has one of those heaters (fired by propane) and it works very nicely, blowing the warmed air through floor vents. At night, on the wall you can see the shadow of the flames dancing (a tad disconcerting). We had a heating guy come for an annual check-up and he freaked out! Made us sign the invoice that said he was not responsible for any malfunctioning up to and including death! (I do have THREE carbon monoxide detectors in that 400 sq feet, though…)
We had a heater like the one you’ve pictured in the house I lived in from about age 3-5. I’m not sure when that house was built, perhaps, 1930s or 40s?, Anyway, the heater ran on natural gas. We’d turn it on every morning and warm up by it.
That recessed shoe rack is neat. I love stuff like that. I wish my home had cooler features built into it. I’m trying to add little touches of modern conveniences to give it a modern retro look though as I work to improve it.
Wow – my 1958 house has the recessed shoe racks in all of the bedroom closets, one on each side of the closet. They’re fun and we do use them as intended.
We also have that clothes chute door in our hallway! It’s weird, because I always though the previous owners had installed it decades later – I didn’t realize it may be original to the house. Unfortunately, in our house the actual chute itself is tiny , so we don’t actually use it as a laundry chute, but it’s I’m so excited to see this.
So easy to design with! The countertop material, the sink model AND its position are all pre-selected for us! Even the electrical outlets are included! No pesky posts-corbels-wainscot panels-or bun feet..
Freedom!
I have something more elaborate than the Midway Sink. It is a “General Chef” combination sink, refrigerator, stove and oven. There were originally two installed in my guest house but only one remains (currently not in use). Maybe – someday – I may get it restored!
I have a package receiver in my 1953 kitchen (right next to the back door)! It’s just a door on the outside and one on the inside, which is exactly the width of the wall. I was considering cleaning it up and leaving it metal, but I might have to paint it, as the ad shows it.
And Jay, in Denver, we have home milk delivery…but it goes to a cooler that sits on your porch. How much cooler would it be if they’d put it in my package receiver instead?
And here I was thinking that my house was probably behind the times (being Denver and not a coast) with it’s coved ceilings. Guess not!
I wouldn’t mind several of those recessed shoe racks — especially in the space-challenged closets of my kids’ rooms. Also want Leigh’s door awning.
Those wall heaters are common in 40s and 50s apartments throughout Southern California. They run on the same gas a modern furnace uses, supplied by So Cal Gas…..and I have seen the shoe racks built into lots of area homes here too….they seem to go hand in hand with ironing board cabinets and milk doors. I would love a dust chute in my 1945 house!
My husband and I recently purchased a 40s home w/ the built-in shoe racks listed above. They are fantastic! High-heeled shoes look absolutely adorable in them.. which creates the terrible problem of needing to stock the closets with cute heels.
I can’t believe I missed this post until now. I had that exact same wall heater in this house when we moved in. Horrible, noisy, smelly and inefficient by today’s standards. It ran on propane. I took it out after we got the electric cove heat installed. Now I have this hole in the wall…..
seen on the one page for leigh the through wall package door. actually seen a few homes that have them, 50% of the people had no idea what it was.
My grandparent’s house in Texas (built in 1949) had tall wall heaters like that in one bedroom (why not in the other two?) and a small den. They had a floor furnace in the living room and ceramic wall heaters built into the tile walls of both bathrooms, which were the only heat sources in the house and all ran on natural gas (had to be started with matches). It didn’t get too cold where they lived but the house would still get cold at night in the winter. As a child used to central heat & air, I remember being scared of the heaters for, with the lights out, you could see the pilot light and hear them firing up as they cycled on. The metal cabinets would also pop as the metal expanded and heated up.